Tourists in our Own Backyard

In honor of the return of Twinkies, I'm going to make a concerted effort to bring back The Nu Warren. I begin with a post about a rejuvenation...

Today, Green Thumbs McGillicutty, L. Woods, and I were tourists in our own backyard.  For L. Woods' and my birthdays, Ms. McGillicutty invited us to tea at Charles Chocolates in San Francisco.  Charles Chocolates is located in the Mission District.  This was the first time I'd been to that part of the city and I really liked it.  I felt like I was among the working folk, and not the fancy pants city folk.

When we got to Charles Chocolates, we were greeted with a menu that promised nothing less than scrumptiousness and wonder.  I chose the Yorkshire Gold Black Tea, L. Woods chose the Organic Maiden's Ecstasy Pu-Erh Tea, and Green Thumbs chose the Organic Blood Orange Pu-Erh Tea.  My Yorkshire tea and L. Woods' Maiden's Ecstasy tea were yummy.  I don't know whether the Blood Orange tea was good because Green Thumbs never offered me any.  Then, the food arrived, each item lined up to meet their fate in the Chamber of Horrors that is my stomach (my favorite victim was the Pulled BBQ Chicken Slider).  Most interesting item was the Fresh Bing Cherry Clafoutis, egg-y and light (for Cantonese speakers, the consistency is the same as lo bahk go).  We met Charles himself!  He's a great host!

After this delightful tea, the three of us strolled around the Mission District with endless possibilities before us.  We were open to anything!  Green Thumbs then suggested that we visit the mission and we did.

Just kidding.  That^ wasn't the mission.  That^ was the high school.

This is the Mission San Francisco.  It is also known as Mission Delores and is the oldest structure in San Francisco.  It was built before the Declaration of Independence (see right).

We met many saints there.  My favorite is San Juan Capistrano.  He was the only one with a sword (because he led a Crusade) (he's the one on the left).  Here is the altar where Pope John Paul II visited back in 1987.

Then, we visited the basilica that is part of the mission but the basilica was built in 1918.  I'm not Catholic so I'm not sure what is the difference between a basilica and a church, but the basilica was fancier than the church.  Here is its altar.

The mark of a basilica is the gold and red umbrella (shown at the right) and the crest of the church (it's on the left but blocked by a column in this view).  We saw many saints here, too.

Oh!  I take back my previous statement about San Juan Capistrano being my favorite saint.  He's only my second favorite because my first favorite is Saint Francis of Assisi, the saint for whom San Franciso and the Franciscan order are named.  Here's a picture of him (left).  Can you guess why he's my favorite saint?

At the basilica, we saw beautiful cupolas and stained glass windows.  The windows showed many saints, many after whom cities were named:
Santa Clara
San Juan Capistrano and San Luis Obispo (boo...long live Pomona!)
San Gabriel (*claps!!*) and San Antonio
San Carlos and San Diego
Santa Barbara and Junipero Serra

There was also an ancient cemetery ("goo mo"), which is something that So Ba Sing really loves to visit.  Because we are in the West, which is a younger part of the nation than the East, our goo mos aren't as goo.  The oldest one I found was from 1830, the grave of Don Luis Antonio Arguello, the governor of "Alta California," back when California was still a part of Mexico.  Interestingly, that  picture I took is almost exactly the shot that is on the Wikipedia entry for Senor Arguello (scroll down). There was a sundial in the cemetery that was off by only about 20 minutes, and that depicted Father Time (not the Grim Reaper) (so says L. Woods and Green Thumbs).

On the way back to our parking spot, we found a pair of shoes and its owner a few yards away.

All in all, we spent a relaxing day experiencing San Francisco and being tourists in our own backyard.  Here, again, are the ladies who lunched:

Welcome back, Friends!